Master of Whitestorm

by Janny Wurts

  Ithariel moved now on reflex. Her braids had torn loose, and the ends curled damp with sweat. She strove to mind spells that burned and lacerated concentration; at any moment, her control was going to fail. Wards would unravel like shadows before light, and the demons would know her for the enemy.

  Better than the rest, the enchantress understood her progress so far had been possible through surprise. Morien had defended Alathir with all the bright force of a White Circle Council Major; she, by herself, had sought only to mask and conceal. The linchpin of her plan had been the false image of the man left behind in chains upon the ridge; to spirit the real flesh away she had needed to wait until Korendir had exhausted himself to stillness. That necessity by itself had sapped her. Now, clothed in the thinnest of spell-craft, she shadowed them all in forms unobtrusively common. That the horrors which had desecrated Alathir so far did not question the semblance of a sparrow, or small stones, or a rustling drift of dry leaves offered scant margin for safety. The demons' continued pursuit indicated suspicion; once they chose to react, no last-ditch tactic would avail. Ithariel clung to spells that tattered under her mastery; she lagged behind, fighting, while the final wellspring of reserves burned to emptiness within her. The ruse she had spun to protect could hold not a minute longer.

  Sea wind whispered through pine trees. Beyond flashed the white foam of breakers. A dozen steps completed in racking weariness, and the spongy blanket of shed needles gave way to dune grass and sand. The shimmery blots that were demons spun doubtfully, then lingered at the edge of the beach. They sensed the presence of water and natural caution made them hesitate.

  There, with respite most cruelly in sight, Ithariel's failing wardspell sputtered out.

  "Run!" Her shout split to hoarseness with fear, but the grandfather and youngest son heard. They struggled to bear up the litter and cross the last yards to the sea. Dry sand mired their strides. Their burden swayed dangerously, and Korendir came near to spilling out.

  "Run!" screamed Ithariel a second time. If she could overtake them, there remained the chip of crystal in the marriage ring. But her legs trembled beneath her, each stride more labored than the last.

  The roils of churned air arrowed out from the forest's edge. Demons converged in a rush toward three fleeing humans and what they now perceived as the bronze-haired son of the enchanter they had trapped to torment to his death.

  The burned smell intensified upon the breeze. It stung the throats and lungs of Ithariel and her companions, and seared their eyes blurry with tears. The boy and the grandfather sprinted ahead with no thought except to reach the sea. There, outlined against shining water, a boat waited already launched. Steadfast and ready for action, two brothers stood braced at her thwarts.

  The demons closed. Barely a yard from the ruffled edge of the surf, a canyon opened in the sand. The old man gallantly jumped with the litter poles still on his shoulders. Behind him, the boy wailed in panic. He threw off his burden and leaped after, and Korendir tumbled outward into air.

  Ithariel hurled her body over the brink. While the earth ripped in twain underneath her, she collided with her husband. Entangled in his unconscious limbs, she tumbled in a sickening fall. Sand grains pattered her clothing, then bounced off and vanished into dark. Light and shimmers laced her flesh, and her overtaxed lungs choked on fumes. The demons encompassed her presence, exulting in the recapture of her mercenary. Down from the sunlit world above filtered shouts, growing rapidly fainter.

  Enveloped by demons, all but lost, Ithariel thrashed against wind and gravity and caught her husband's hand. Still on his finger was the marriage ring with its contained glimmer of wards. Ithariel cupped her palm over the tallix setting. She tapped the energy within, borrowed strength, and spun spells.

  Magelight ripped out like lightning, wove a net to arrest their plunge. But the virtues of the ward were limited. She might preserve and defend for a short while, but the ring had not been endowed with the power for aggressive attack.

  Spent past all effort at guile, Ithariel clung to her husband. Their chance was forfeit, even had she been fresh, for the demons were aware. The moment she tapped magic in their presence, her antagonists recognized her for an enchantress, an enemy like other ones vanquished in fury at Alathir. Helpless, plunging in a rush of dark down a cleft toward the depths of the earth, Ithariel could do nothing but scream in frustration as the entities which had annihilated High Morien closed in a ring of disturbed air.

  * * *

  Her cry echoed up from the pit as the boy and his grandfather splashed through shallows. Waves rushed sparkling to meet them and kicked rooster tails of foam around the their knees. They reached the longboat. White-faced with terror, and tried to the limits of endurance, they tumbled inside while the brothers immediately shoved off.

  Behind, through air that seemed tortured by heat waves, they left the black chasm where Korendir and Ithariel had fallen. Surf that had not been close enough to save lapped now at the sandy rim.

  While the longboat cleaved her way seaward, the grandfather covered his face. At his knee, curled in defeat, the youngest of his grandsons cried for shame.

  "Neth, it was I who killed them!" The boy choked on sobs, while spray dashed over the bow and drenched the bowed crown of his head.

  "Nay, lad." The grandfather extended a hand and ruffled the boy's dripping hair. "It was let go, or fall yourself, and dying along with the mercenary would not have saved yer ma."

  The boat rocked, slewed by the currents of flooding tide. Waist deep in the waves, the elder brothers clung grimly as an undulating swell larger than the rest advanced toward them. The wave peaked and crested like an avalanche off the bow. As one, the brothers signalled agreement and clambered over the thwarts. Water spattered from their smocks as they seized their crude oars and threaded the handles through twine looped through the fittings for rowlocks. The wave kicked the prow, licked amidships, and left the boat unsupported to the mid-ribs. The craft poised, dipped, then plunged with a hard-bellied smack into the depths of the trough. For a moment the land lay eclipsed.

  Then the waters roared by, and the boat heaved into recovery.

  "Give those demons a wetting," muttered the eldest brother as he clawed for balance and sat. He leaned into the oars, joined at next stroke by his brother.

  The wave washed astern with a roar. Whitewater rampaged up the beach, then surged in a sluice of dirty foam over the lip of the crevice. Demons roiled clear with a ripple like noxious fumes, and the grandfather screamed, "Go back!"

  "What? Are ye daft?" The elder brother pulled all the harder on his looms, and his sibling followed suit.

  But the old man stubbornly shook his head. "Water. The lady said that demons couldn't tolerate the sea. Bless the tide that rises, there just might be a chance."

  "Get us all killed," the brother groused, but he lifted his oars in obedience. As another swell curled beneath the keel, he tensed his shoulders to swing the bow.

  The next wave crashed and broke. A churning maelstrom of spray doused the rift in the sands. Something within unravelled like spilled light, and a crack echoed across the sea. Sound slammed the hills like thunder, though puffs of harmless cumulus sailed a fair weather sky. The brothers at the oars trembled in open-mouthed dread.

  They searched through fright for one thing that was ordinary to restore faith in a world gone strange.

  No sign appeared except a tern that shot up from the shore, half glimpsed through a dazzle of sunlight. She might have been scavenging at the tideline and started up as the water rose. Something glisteningly fishy dangled from her beak. The boy Oleg raised his head to watch her flight in a rush of renewed hope.

  The morsel in her bill weighed her down out of all proportion to its size. Certain now, and revitalized by excitement, the boy called out to his brothers. "Bend your backs and follow that bird."

  "Ye're daft as gramps," accused the oarsman to starboard. Slow to understand, he watched without reaction as the tern sheared
down toward the swells.

  She struck just beyond the line of combers, and kicked up a startling splash.

  "Neth 'n' devils, that's no bird," exclaimed the eldest brother. He squinted over the handles of his looms, while the air above the beachhead swarmed and burned with a mirage-like moil of starved energies. Demons recognized their prey. They yearned toward the place where the tern had fallen, but dared not cross the encroaching flood of the tide.

  Just then two heads broke the surface, shining with wet, and human. Korendir lay cradled in the naked arms of his lady. The ring's small wards were played out. She had no strength left to swim, but tumbled in the roll of green waters toward a shoreline still swarming with enemies.

  "Row, or I'll keelhaul the lot o' ye," snapped the grandfather; and in just respect for his wrath, the brothers quit bickering and pulled oars.

  XXII. Heir to Alathir

  Sunlight slanted through the fishing boat's hatch and scribed light like a brand on worn decking. Ithariel sat on a sea chest in the gloom to one side, robed in loose cotton, but no pearls. Her hair had not yet dried, but spilled in combed ribbons down her back. Her hands lay slack in her lap. The sight of her, waiting, was the first thing Korendir noticed when he opened his eyes after his mishap in Illantyr.

  He sprawled on the berth in the stern cabin, wrapped in nothing but a blanket ingrained with the aroma of cod. Late afternoon sky caught on the wavelets beneath the counter and threw reflections like ribbon on the beams above his head. He ached in every muscle and joint, and when he spoke, his voice was brokenly harsh.

  "The demons. They revealed a thing about my paternity." Accusation colored his tone.

  Ithariel stroked his knuckles. "All true. You're son to High Morien who once was Archmaster at Alathir. But were the White Circle to tell you, they would have sealed your doom. I could never have recovered you alive had the demons not paused to make sport with you. They will hate you the more fiercely, knowing you exist. Now, should they regain access to Alhaerie, Whitestorm itself might be attacked. My wardstone there could not stay them."

  Korendir refused the implications. He trapped her small hand between his own and rolled onto his side. A glimpse of his eyes caused Ithariel to abandon her hope of sailing. She might wish one ordeal would convince her husband that his quest to save Illantyr was futile; most typically, his expression showed otherwise.

  Abovedecks, one of the brothers sang a chantey while he cut up fish for the supper pot.

  The uncomplicated sweetness of the moment cut like pain. Aware of what must come, and desperate to avert the inevitable, Ithariel changed the subject. "Where did you hide the jolly boat's oars?

  Korendir looked at her, blinked, then rubbed at the wrappings which bound the abrasions left by shackles. "I tied them to the anchor line," he admitted hoarsely. The simplest speech came with effort. "They'll come in waterlogged, but undamaged, unless they're discovered by crabs. Then the leathers might want mending."

  He shifted restlessly. Ithariel recognized purpose in his frown. Every sensible part of her shrank from his decision, and she tried to withdraw her hand. His fingers tightened. "Ithariel, listen to me. The Mathcek Demons must be destroyed."

  That statement, so soon, was too much. Ithariel surged to her feet. "I spared you from torture and death, and now you ask for Morien's fate?"

  Korendir lay back, his head propped awkwardly against a bulkhead. "You're magnificent, did I tell you that?" He chose his next words with care, mostly because his throat pained him. "There is a way. The demons themselves showed me how."

  In labored phrases, he explained; and as the anger roused by his flattery cooled, Ithariel reconsidered. He had not lost his wits. The plan he outlined held cunning and logic, and also danger beyond reckoning. Since the demons now posed threat to Whitestorm, she knew better than try to dissuade him. Instead she paced to the grating and paused in the light shaft beneath.

  "I'll help," she said to the man who held her heart. "But only if the captain agrees to loan you this boat without crew. Never will I sail the Mathcek deeps to barter with a weather elemental if one of those grandsons remains aboard."

  Korendir answered with his eyes closed. "The grandsons may think otherwise." And in the interval Ithariel took to determine whether or not she ought to slap him, he contrived to fall soundly asleep.

  * * *

  Lightning seared a crack across sky. The booming report of thunder slammed the night and shook every timber in the boat where Ithariel leaned at the rail. She could sense the black currents that stirred fathoms down beneath the keel; here lay the deepest waters upon Aerith. Mortal opinion to the contrary, demons did not arise from the canyons that seamed the sea floor between Illantyr's isle and Dunharra; but weather elementals often did, and for that reason Korendir threaded oars in the jollyboat that heaved alongside.

  Gusts snapped at the lines and thrummed minor strains from the stays. Korendir's sleeves fluttered in the flame-whipped light from the lantern. Prepared to cast off, he looked up at his worried wife. "Have faith. I've done this before."

  "Hardly the same circumstance." Ithariel did not trust herself to qualify; at Whitestorm, against Cyondide, Korendir had been extraordinarily lucky. Although this time he carried the reputation for destroying two of Aerith's most powerful elementals, he owned no whit more protection. His plot was still based on bluff.

  "Well, delay won't help my chances." Korendir tugged gently at the rope which secured his small craft to the rail, then used his wife's tactics against her. "Now tell me the name of yon tempest and cut me loose, or must I hack free with my dirk?"

  Ithariel slipped the knot with trepidation. "The elemental calls itself Tolaine." She paused, the tasseled end of the painter looped between her hands. "If you're going to dedicate yourself to recklessness, drown yourself quickly and spare me from worry and gray hair."

  Lightning illuminated his expression of wide surprise. "Once Illantyr is secure from the demons, what reason on Aerith could take me from Whitestorm again?"

  Ithariel flipped the line into the tender. "Neth if I know. Haldeth swears on his favorite hammer you'll invent one."

  "Haldeth!" Korendir dipped oars and leaned into his stroke. "Fretting's his primary occupation. Don't you start also."

  Ithariel returned a look of reproof. "Give me one day without any reason to."

  Korendir's laugh tangled with another crack of thunder. "Tomorrow," he called back. On his next still-expert stroke, the boat vanished into the night.

  Left no task except to tend the lanterns, Ithariel stared out into dark. On this occasion she could not follow her beloved into danger. Since elementals by nature contested power, the potency of White Circle magic itself offered liability. Belligerent with wizards, and overtly sensitive to enchantments, they would go out of their way to offer challenge. In waters under Tolaine's sovereignty, Korendir dared not carry even the burned-out tallix of his marriage ring.

  Ithariel trimmed each of the lantern wicks. She paced the decks and watched lightning spear the sea, jagged as veins in obsidian. Sometimes she saw a fleck on gray waters that might be Korendir's boat. But the moments of storm-flash were too brief, and the object too distant to identify his presence with certainty.

  Midnight came and went. Alone, Ithariel waited by the mainmast pinrail. A patter of rain slashed her face. She thought upon the man she had married, and those traits in his character that infuriated her: his unshiftable penchant for black, and spare words, and a wayward tendency to switch the subject when she touched upon issues that troubled him. And yet for all her frustration, she harbored no lasting regret. His deathless compassion, and gentle hands, and contentiously uncompromising integrity had altered her life. In the space of a single afternoon he had captured her heart as nothing else in Aerith ever could.

  His absence made the night seem interminable. The snores of the fishing boat's captain rasped faintly from the forward hatch. In the end, after bitterest argument, common sense had prevailed; his grandsons
remained ashore to look after their widowed mother. For that the enchantress was grateful. Sooner rather than later the direst mischance would overtake them.

  A gust plucked at the rigging and the waves picked up. The fishing boat tossed, hove to upon raging waters off her bow, lightning jagged the darkness with repeated and unnatural ferocity. Spindrift crowned the wave crests like wraiths, and thunder pealed in a continuous roll that rattled every tenon in the hull.

  Spray-soaked and shivering, Ithariel clung to a stay. Discomfort by itself could not force her below to fetch a cloak. Although she stood a full league removed from the vortex of the elemental's force, her peril was no less than her husband's. The escalating violence of the weather offered warning: either Tolaine displayed his powers to intimidate, or else she witnessed a wrath that could turn at any instant to murder. The jollyboat was too frail to withstand an ocean squall. Korendir might already be capsized.

  And yet as the storm raged and the wind shrieked a hag's chorus around her, Ithariel sensed no mishap to his person. Will was all that sustained her as the gale peaked, and the lanterns streamed red, and the decking gleamed like hot copper under cloudburst.

  Suddenly everything went still. The swells thrashed and sucked against the timbers; blocks banged and squealed in the chafe of the lines aloft, but their noise was a solo against silence. The wind winnowed away to an ominous calm. The change caused the grandfather to rise and check anchor lines; swathed in patched oilskins, he straightened on the foredeck and glanced across in perplexity at the enchantress.

  "Listen," said Ithariel. She forced her teeth to stop chattering.

  A shout echoed faintly over the water. Above the work of timbers and the slap of loosened halyards, words could just barely be heard. "Tolaine, by your name I offer challenge. I say your strength is insufficient to hold the sea of Tammernon to a calm like perfect glass between sunrise and sunset."

  The reply boomed back in a savage gust of air. "Who speaks? Answer! Tolaine is mighty enough to girdle all Aerith in stillness for a fortnight, or a decade, or a year."